Thursday, June 24, 2010

How to set up HootSuite so it uses Traditonal Retweets rather than Twitter's pseudo-retweets

Hootsuite recently updated its software to try and trick people into using Twitter's fake retweets instead of real retweets.

Now I'm not a fan of Hootsuite, and wasn't even before this dirty trick, but for those of you gluttons for punishment who insist on continuing to use Hootsuite, here's how to set it up to reject the dirty trick:

1. Click on the stupid owl in the upper left hand part of your screen.

2. Go to Settings>Preferences

3. Unclick "Use Twitter Web retweets"

4. Save preferences.

You'll then be doing regular, genuine, traditional retweets.

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Wednesday, June 23, 2010

How to set up Twittelator to do traditional retweets

In settings>retweets you'll be given 3 "retweet options":

Editable
Auto
Ask

Select "Editable" & save & you're all set.

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Saturday, June 19, 2010

Advice: if you add a bunch of new people through Mr. Tweet, don't tweet about it

When someone follows me, and I have to decide whether to refollow them, the first thing I look at is their avatar and bio, primarily for the purpose of eliminating people. I will almost never follow someone based on their avatar and bio; I will only eliminate them from consideration based on those.

The second thing I look at, and the key to whether or not I will follow back, is the person's tweet stream, because that and that alone can inform me as to what kind of experience it will be to follow that person.

If the stream consists of page after page of tweets which say "@username I just followed you using @X 's chats with you through @MrTweet" .... I am not going to follow you back, because I will have received no information at all as to what kind of tweeter you are, other than that you are insensitive to the problem of generating spam.

So either, you should...

1. Only add a few people at a time using Mr. Tweet, or

2. Resist the temptation to tweet about it.

(Shortened URL for this post: http://is.gd/cNMGE)

Thursday, June 10, 2010

Is it just me, or is it annoying when tweeps........

1. comment on tweets of yours without retweeting or even referencing the underlying tweet?

2. copy you on tweets for no apparent reason?

3. ask you to tweet stuff for them, even if they they've never done that for you, and even though it's not the kind of thing you normally tweet about?

4. tweet you just to start an argument with you?

I can't stand any of that. Here's the way I look at it:

Sending a comment, without retweeting the actual tweet upon which you are commenting, is IMHO an annoying practice. If you like it, retweet it. If you want to comment, add your comment to the retweet, but DON'T omit to retweet at least some of the underlying tweet. If you have a comment that's too long to add to the retweet, retweet first, and then comment.

If you reference me in a tweet it is going to take up space in my "mentions" stream, and I'm going to have to read it.... so make sure you have a reason for mentioning my name. If you're going to repeatedly comment on my tweets without retweeting them, I consider that a form of spam.

Today I got several tweets from someone apparently commenting on tweets of mine, but giving me no clue as to what they were referring to.

And I got several tweets in which someone else used my name to imply I'd tweeted something which I've never said, and never would say.

I am going to start blocking people who continue doing stuff like this.